TIFF 2014: Gala and Special Presentation Films Announced

The Toronto International Film Festival announced 59 Gala and Special Presentation films Tuesday morning, a small part of its estimated 300-film lineup for TIFF 2014, which runs Sept. 4 to 14. The majority of them are world premieres.

Alan Rickman’s A Little Chaos will close the 2014 Festival. Screening at Roy Thomson Hall on September 13, the film stars Kate Winslet, Matthias Schoenaerts, Alan Rickman and Stanley Tucci.

Wild starring Reese Witherspoon will screen at the festival. The self-discovery drama is the latest entry from Quebec director Jean-Marc Vallee based on the bestselling memoir by Cheryl Strayed.

Among the films announced Tuesday were Gala spots for Ed Zwick’s chess drama Pawn Sacrifice, starring Tobey Maguire as American chess master Bobby Fischer and Liev Schreiber as Boris Spassky, his Soviet challenger, David Cronenberg’s Cannes hit Maps to the Stars, and Canadian director Shawn Levy’s black comedy about a family brought together by a funeral, This is Where I Leave You, starring Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Jane Fonda and Adam Driver.

Also getting Gala slots were Samba, French directors Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache’s first film since The Intouchables, Antoine Fuqua’s The Equalizer, starring Denzel Washington and Chloe Grace Moretz, and Mike Binder’s custody drama about a biracial child, Black and White, starring Kevin Costner and Octavia Spencer.

The Canadian premiere of Olympic-themed drama Foxcatcher also screens in the Gala program. Starring Channing Tatum and Steve Carell, it previously bowed at Cannes, where Bennett Miler picked up the best director prize for the film.

South Korean director Shim Sung-bo’s thriller Haemoo and David Dobkin’s family drama The Judge, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Vera Farmiga, rounds out the Gala program.

More Gala films will be announced in coming weeks, including Canadian titles at an Aug. 6 media conference.

Special Presentation films include movies starring Maggie Smith (My Old Lady), Kristen Stewart (Still Alice), TIFF stalwart Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game) and James Gandolfini in The Drop, his final role. Some of the other highlights: